Influencer Marketing in Asia: An Interview with Aaron Brooks
Aaron Brooks
April 21, 2017
With almost 3 billion users, Facebook promises brands and influencers an unprecedented opportunity for audience engagement and business growth. Find out how to schedule your Facebook posts to ensure a consistent online presence and quality customer interactions.
Getting in front of your target audience is key for growing your brand. However, this is easier said than done. Stiff competition and short attention spans mean that brands today have to work extra hard just to get in front of their customers let alone engage with them and build a following.
In order to achieve this, businesses and influencers alike need to post consistent, targeted content on a regular basis. That said, posting quality content several times a week takes time. Not only can life get in the way and sabotage our publishing schedules, but we may lack the inspiration to write something fun or engaging every single day.
This is where post scheduling comes in handy. Facebook, in particular, is absolutely vital for your social media strategy as it’s still the number one most-used social media platform in the world.
If you can schedule dozens of Facebook posts upfront, you’ll be well on your way to build a steady following and grow your sales. Read on to find out how to optimise this process and which social media tools will make your life easier.
If you want to build an audience, consistency in when and how often you post is key. The more you post, the more likely it is that your customers will find and engage with you.
However, posting content online takes time. Even if you have someone else to do this for you, they’d need to generate original and engaging content most days for your strategy to work.
Scheduling your posts, on the other hand, allows you to take a holistic view of your social media strategy and post more targeted content. Not only will scheduling your posts save you time, it can also help you to write better quality content as you can create posts in bulk when you’re feeling most creative. This bird’s-eye view of how and when your customers engage with your content can feed directly into your customer journey map and fuel the rest of your marketing activities.
You don’t need to use an external tool to schedule your posts on Facebook as the platform comes with its own scheduling functionality. That said, you won’t be able to schedule posts from your personal account.
Instead, you’ll need to open a business page and use the Meta Business Suite to write and schedule your posts. Below, we also discuss other third-party tools that you can use free of charge to schedule your Facebook posts.
Facebook launched its new Pages experience in 2021. It has a different look and feel to the classic page. Regardless of which page layout you use, you can still schedule your posts for free using the desktop platform or through Meta Business Suite.
If you’re using the new page experience, click on your profile avatar at the top-right corner of your screen and select your page. Then:
Bear in mind that posts can be scheduled for between 20 minutes and 75 days ahead.
If you’re still using the classic page, follow these steps to schedule your posts:
If you want to schedule your posts from your smartphone or tablet, you’ll need to download the Meta Business Suite app, which is available both on Android and iOS. Then, you can schedule your posts just like you do on your desktop. Just click on ‘Create post’, and under ‘Scheduling options’, select ‘Schedule for later’.
Note that from the app, you can also schedule stories and photos to be published at a later date.
You don’t need to rely on Facebook alone to schedule your posts. There are a number of other tools that can help you to schedule your posts across platforms and integrate tools such as Canva to give your content a splash of colour and captivating design.
One of the more popular apps is Hootsuite, which has over 18 million users. The free version of the app allows you to have one user and two social media accounts. It gives you the opportunity to schedule five posts in advance.
The good thing with using an external app like Hootsuite is that you can centralise all of your social media apps and pull out more powerful analytics. For example, Facebook’s native scheduling functionality allows you to schedule posts only for Facebook and Instagram, whereas Hootsuite supports other platforms as well, such as YouTube, LinkedIn, and Twitter.
If you want to launch a larger, omni-channel marketing campaign and your budget is limited, you can use Zoho Social’s free version, which supports publishing across seven channels, including Facebook.
If you’re managing a Facebook group, you can schedule posts directly from within the group itself. Once you’re in your group, create your post, and click on the calendar icon next to Schedule to select the time and date you want the post to go out.
Then click Save and you’re done. If you want to edit or review your scheduled posts, you can do so from the Scheduled posts menu option on the left sidebar of your group’s page.
When it comes to scheduling your posts from your phone, you can use your Facebook app to do this on the go. Just tap the three horizontal lines to bring up the menu (these are at the top right corner on Android, and at the bottom on iPhone and iPad).
From there, click on the Groups icon and select the group you want to schedule the post for. On the group’s homepage, go to the Write something box to write your post.
Once you’ve done this, click on the Schedule option (which should appear below your name). This will open up a pop-up window, which will allow you to update the time and date for your post.
Facebook requires you to have a page or group to schedule your posts. If you’re trying to schedule posts from your personal account, you won’t be able to find that option in the menu.
If you’re looking to grow your brand, it’s best to create a public page for your business and then post all of your business content from there.
Facebook distinguishes between profiles, pages, and groups. While each page needs to be associated with a personal profile, profiles and pages are meant to be used for different purposes.
For example, your personal Facebook profile is meant to showcase your personal hobbies and interests, whereas a page is intended for artists, brands and public figures who want to connect with their audience.
In this sense, you can’t schedule posts from your personal Facebook profile. However, you can use your profile to launch a public page – all free of charge.
Building an audience online is paramount for business success, regardless of the type of products or services you offer. This requires a consistent online presence and targeted messaging, which will allow your brand to stay top of mind for your customers.
That said, we’re all leading busy lives. Whether you’re working on your next product, supporting your existing customers or simply enjoying some time off, keeping up with the social media race can be tough.
Here’s where post scheduling can give you a bit of a breather. Depending on your needs, you can use Facebook’s own scheduling option or adopt a third party tool to optimise your workflow.
Either way, this is a good time to think about your content strategy and how you want to engage your audience in the coming year. Once you have that figured out, get writing and start scheduling.
Are you ready to get started? If you’re itching to optimise your social media strategy, why not give Vamp a whirl and see your brand grow?
